Over a year in the making, this collaborative project between Mondo, Aaron Horkey, and Moon Editions is finally ready to be released. You’re looking at a 14.75″ x 36″ lasercut, hand-stained wood panel, this thing is beyond insane. It has an edition of only 33 and will cost $450. It is also laser-numbered on the back and includes a keyhole for hanging. These go up tomorrow (Friday, December 2nd) at a random time. Visit Mondotees.com.

Tip for anyone in the UK – don’t try to buy a $450 item from Mondo with a Barclaycard World Mastercard; you’ll see your card declined and cart emptied whilst their automatic fraud protection drones call every phone you own. So, so close. So, so annoyed with Barclaycard. Congrats to those that scored.

Forgive me of my ignorance but isn’t a computerized laser etching doing most of the work? I see the sanding, staining and whatnot and that obviously takes some time and effort – but is there some grand thing I’m missing between Aaron’s key plate or black line that’s just scanned in? Does it have to be digitized similar to embroidery, or is it more like illustrator where from Aaron’s black line work it would be live-traceable into vector format? Incredible piece and would love to own one myself someday, but can someone better explain to me why this took over a year to create? Not being a dick.

We have a large laser engraver here at work. Basically, different shades of grey translate into different depths of cut. Having the art in vector format is always beneficial, but I’m sure having an appropriately colored, high-rez .tiff would be fine for printing. Also depends on the software/hardware the print place is using.

My experience with Illustrator’s Live Trace feature is more that of a blunt instrument. It strikes me that it would take a LOT of work to convert a Horkey piece into vector format if it were not already…

I worked in a plastic injection mold shop for ages. Before the economy dropped, it was actually a family business. This laser piece is no joke. Granted, we worked with massive chunks of steel and had to cut through layer upon layer to establish a mold, but this is just pure artistry.

As Coe said above, lasers are still pretty blunt instruments. Science fiction is fun and all, but I can’t even fathom the hours it took to get this piece right. A big round of applause to everyone involved. I wish I had the time and money to obtain a piece of such magnitude.

Moon Editions is the most rad shop out there. Every piece they’ve put out is phenomenal quality. The art inselff, their customer service, the packaging when it’s shipped to you- all high quality and considered. This piece is going look incredible.